KALAMAZOO, MI -- The Michigan Catholic Conference, which manages employee benefits for all Michigan archdioceses, including the Diocese of Kalamazoo, has filed suit against the federal government, seeking relief from the mandate which requires employers to include in their health benefit plans coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and artificial contraception.

Courtesy photoThe Most Rev. Paul Bradley, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Kalamazoo.

The mandate from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services violates the Catholic Church’s teaching on the sanctity of human life and the dignity of the human person, said Kalamazoo Bishop Paul J. Bradley in a news release from the diocese.

“The gravity of the HHS mandate and its impact on our Catholic institutions necessitates this action,” Bradley said.

More than 10,000 Catholic institution employees and their dependents receive the medical benefit from the Michigan Catholic Conference, including employees of the 59 parishes and 22 Catholic schools in the Diocese of Kalamazoo.

According to the Michigan Catholic Conference complaint, the lawsuit “…is not about whether people have a right to abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception. Those services are freely available in the United States, and nothing prevents the government itself from making them more widely available. Here, however, the government seeks to require plaintiffs – Catholic entities – to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs by providing, paying for, and/or facilitating access to those services.”

The lawsuit was filed Monday in United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio and is among several dozen similar complaints filed today by Catholic organizations across the country.